The first great Christian Father whose history is
Roman is, nevertheless, not a Roman, but a Greek. He is the
disciple of Irenæus, and the spirit of his life-work rejects that
of his master. In his personal character he so much resembles
Irenæus risen again,[1] that the
great Bishop of Lyons must be well studied and understood if we would
do full justice to the conduct of Hippolytus. Especially did he
follow his master’s example in withstanding contemporary bishops
of Rome, who, like Victor, “deserved to be blamed,” but
who, much more than any of their predecessors, merited rebuke alike for
error in doctrine and viciousness of life.

In the year 1551, while some excavations were in
progress near the ancient Church of St. Lawrence at Rome, on the
Tiburtine Road, there was found an ancient statue, in marble, of a
figure seated in a chair, and wearing over the Roman tunic the
pallium of Tertullian’s eulogy. It was in 1851, just
three hundred years after its discovery, and in the year of the
publication of the newly discovered Philosophumena at Oxford,
that I saw it in the Vatican. As a specimen of early Christian
art it is a most interesting work, and possesses a higher merit than
almost any similar production of a period subsequent to that of the
Antonines.[2] It represents a
grave personage, of noble features and a high, commanding forehead,
slightly bearded, his right hand resting over his heart, while under it
his left arm crosses the body to reach a book placed at his side.
There is no reason to doubt that this is, indeed, the statue of
Hippolytus, as is stated in the inscription of Pius IV., who calls him
“Saint Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus,” and states that he
lived in the reign of the Emperor Alexander; i.e., Severus.

Of this there is evidence on the chair itself,
which represents his episcopal cathedra, and has a modest symbol
of lions at “the stays,” as if borrowed from the throne of
Solomon. It is a work of later date than the age of Severus, no
doubt; but Wordsworth, who admirably illustrates the means by which
such a statue may have been provided, gives us good reasons for
supposing that it may have been the grateful tribute of contemporaries,
and all the more trustworthy as a portrait of the man himself.
The chair has carved upon it, no doubt for use in the Church, a
calendar indicating the Paschal full moons for seven cycles of sixteen
years each; answering, according to the science of the period, to
similar tables in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It
indicates the days on which Easter must fall, from a.d. 222 to a.d. 333. On the
back of the chair is a list of the author’s works.[3]

Not less interesting, and vastly more important,
was the discovery, at Mount Athos, in 1842, of the long-lost
Philosophumena of this author, concerning which the important
facts will appear below. Its learned editor, Emmanuel Miller,
published it at Oxford under the name of Origen, which was inscribed on
the ms. Like the Epistle of Clement, its
composition in the Greek language had given it currency among the
Easterns long after it was forgotten in the West; and very naturally
they had ascribed to Origen an anonymous treatise containing much in
coincidence with his
teachings, and supplying the place of one of his works of a similar
kind. It is now sufficiently established as the work of
Hippolytus, and has been providentially brought to light just when it
was most needed.[4] In fact, the
statue rose from its grave as if to rebuke the reigning pontiff (Pius
IV.), who just then imposed upon the Latin churches the novel
“Creed” which bears his name; and now the
Philosophumena comes forth as if to breathe a last warning to
that namesake of the former Pius who, in the very teeth of its
testimony, so recently forged and uttered the dogma of “papal
infallibility” conferring this attribute upon himself, and
retrospectively upon the very bishops of Rome whom St. Hippolytus
resisted as heretics, and has transmitted to posterity, in his
writings, branded with the shame alike of false doctrine and of heinous
crimes. Dr. Döllinger, who for a time lent his learning and
genius to an apologetic effort in behalf of the Papacy, was no doubt
prepared, by this very struggle of his heart versus head, for
that rejection of the new dogma which overloaded alike his intellect
and his conscience, and made it impossible for him any longer to bear
the lashes of Rehoboam[5] in communion with
modern Rome.

In the biographical data which will be
found below, enough is supplied for the needs of the reader of the
present series, who, if he wishes further to investigate the subject,
will find the fullest information in the works to which reference has
been made, or which will be hereafter indicated.[6] But this is the place to recur to the
much-abused passage of Irenæus which I have discussed in a former
volume.[7] Strange to say, I
was forced to correct, from a Roman-Catholic writer, the very
unsatisfactory rendering of our Edinburgh editors, and to elucidate at
some length the palpable absurdity of attributing to Irenæus any
other than a geographical and imperial reference to the importance of
Rome, and its usefulness to the West, more especially, as its only see
of apostolic origin. Quoting the Ninth Antiochian Canon, I gave
good reasons for my conjecture that the Latin convenire
represents συντρέχειν
in the original; and now it remains to be noted how strongly the real
meaning of Irenæus is illustrated in the life and services of his
pupil Hippolytus.

1. That neither Hippolytus nor his master had any
conception that the See of Rome possesses any pre-eminent authority, to
which others are obliged to defer, is conspicuously evident from the
history of both. Alike they convicted Roman bishops of error, and
alike they rebuked them for their misconduct.

2. Hippolytus is the author of a work called
the Little Labyrinth, which, like the recently discovered
Philosophumena, attributes to the Roman See anything but the
“infallibility” which the quotation from Irenæus is so
ingeniously wrested to sustain.[8]
How he did not understand the passage is, therefore,
sufficiently apparent. Let us next inquire what appears, from his
conduct, to be the true understanding of Irenæus.

3. I have shown, in the elucidation already
referred to, how Irenæus affirms that Rome is the city which
everybody visits from all parts, and that Christians, resorting
thither, because it is the Imperial City, carry into it the
testimony of all other churches. Thus it becomes a competent
witness to the quod ab omnibus, because it cannot
be ignorant of what all the churches teach with one accord. This
argument, therefore, reverses the modern Roman dogma; primitive Rome
received orthodoxy instead of prescribing it. She
embosomed the Catholic testimony brought into it from all the
churches, and gave it forth as reflected light; not primarily her own,
but what she faithfully preserved in coincidence with older and more
learned churches than herself. Doubtless she had been planted and
watered by St. Paul and St. Peter; but doubtless, also, she had been
expressly warned by the former of her liability to error and to final
severance[9] from apostolic communion. Hippolytus
lived at a critical moment, when this awful admonition seemed about to
be realized.

4. Now, then, from Portus and from Lyons,
Hippolytus brought into Rome the Catholic doctrine, and convicted two
of its bishops of pernicious heresies and evil living. And thus,
as Irenæus teaches, the faith was preserved in Rome by the
testimony of those from every side resorting thither, not by any
prerogative of the See itself. All this will appear clearly
enough as the student proceeds in the examination of this volume.
But it is now time to avail ourselves of the information given us by
the translator in his Introductory Notice, as
follows:—

The entire of The
Refutation of all Heresies, with the exception of book i., was
found in a ms. brought from a convent on Mount
Athos so recently as the year 1842. The discoverer of this
treasure—for treasure it certainly is—was Minöides
Mynas, an erudite Greek, who had visited his native country in search
of ancient mss., by direction of M. Abel
Villemain, Minister of Public Instruction under Louis Philippe.
The French Government have thus the credit of being instrumental in
bringing to light this valuable work, while the University of Oxford
shares the distinction by being its earliest publishers. The
Refutation was printed at the Clarendon Press in 1851, under the
editorship of M. Emmanuel Miller,[10]
whose labours have proved serviceable to all subsequent
commentators. One generally acknowledged mistake was committed by
Miller in ascribing the work to Origen. He was right in affirming
that the discovered ms. was the continuation of
the fragment, The Philosophumena, inserted in the Benedictine
copy of Origen’s works. In the volume, however, containing
the Philosophumena, we have dissertations by Huet, in which he
questions Origen’s authorship in favour of Epiphanius.
Heuman attributed the Philosophumena to Didymus of Alexandria,
Gale to Aetius;[11] and it, with the rest
of The Refutation, Fessler and Baur ascribed to Caius, but the
Abbe Jellabert to Tertullian. The last hypothesis is untenable,
if for no other reason, because the work is in Greek. In many
respects, Caius, who was a presbyter of Rome in the time of Victor and
Zephyrinus, would seem the probable author; but a fatal
argument—one applicable to those named above, except
Epiphanius—against Caius is his not being, as the author of
The Refutation in the Proœmium declares himself to
be, a bishop. Epiphanius no doubt filled the episcopal office;
but when we have a large work of his on the heresies, with a
summary,[12] it would seem scarcely
probable that he composed likewise, on the same topic, an extended
treatise like the present, with two abridgments. Whatever
diversity of opinion, however, existed as to these claimants, most
critics, though not all, now agree in denying the authorship of
Origen. Neither the style nor tone of The Refutation is
Origenian. Its compilatory process is foreign to Origen’s
plan of composition; while the subject matter itself, for many reasons,
would not be likely to have occupied the pen of the Alexandrine
Father. It is almost impossible but that Origen would have made
some allusions in The Refutation to his other writings, or in
them to it. Not only, however, is there no such allusion, but the
derivation of the word “Ebionites,” in The
Refutation, and an expressed belief in the (orthodox) doctrine of
eternal punishment, are at variance with Origen’s
authorship. Again, no work answering the description is awarded
to Origen in catalogues of his extant or lost writings. These
arguments are strengthened by the facts, that Origen was never a
bishop, and that he did not reside for any length of time at
Rome. He once paid a hurried visit to the capital of the West,
whereas the author of The Refutation asserts his presence at
Rome during the occurrence of events which occupied a period of some
twenty years. And not only was he a spectator, but took part in
these transactions in such an official and authoritative manner as
Origen could never have assumed, either at Rome or
elsewhere.

In this state
of the controversy, commentators turned their attention towards
Hippolytus, in favour of whose authorship the majority of modern
scholars have decided. The arguments that have led to this
conclusion, and those alleged by others against it, could not be
adequately discussed in a notice like the present. Suffice it to
say, that such names as Jacobi, Gieseler, Duncker, Schneidewin,
Bernays, Bunsen, Wordsworth, and Döllinger, support the claims of
Hippolytus. The testimony of Dr. Döllinger, considering the
extent of his theological learning, and in particular his intimate
acquaintance with the apostolic period in church history, virtually, we
submit, decides the question.[13]

For a biography of Hippolytus we have not much
authentic materials. There can be no reasonable doubt but that he
was a bishop, and passed the greater portion of his life in Rome and
its vicinity. This assertion corresponds with the conclusion
adopted by Dr. Döllinger, who, however, refuses to allow that
Hippolytus was, as is generally maintained, Bishop of Portus, a harbour
of Rome at the northern mouth of the Tiber, opposite Ostia.
However, it is satisfactory to establish, and especially upon such
eminent authority as that of Dr. Döllinger, the fact of
Hippolytus’ connection with the Western Church, not only because
it bears on the investigation of the authorship of The
Refutation, the writer of which affirms his personal observation of
what he records as occurring in his own time at Rome, but also because
it overthrows the hypothesis of those who contend that there were more
Hippolytuses than one—Dr. Döllinger shows that there is only
one historical Hippolytus—or that the East, and not Italy, was
the sphere of his episcopal labours. Thus Le Moyne, in the
seventeenth century, a French writer resident in Leyden, ingeniously
argues that Hippolytus was bishop of Portus Romanorum (Aden), in
Arabia. Le Moyne’s theory was adopted by some celebrities,
viz., Dupin, Tillemont, Spanheim, Basnage, and our own Dr. Cave.
To this position are opposed, among others, the names of Nicephorus,
Syncellus, Baronius, Bellarmine, Dodwell, Beveridge, Bull, and
Archbishop Ussher. The judgment and critical accuracy of Ussher
is, on a point of this kind, of the highest value. Wherefore the
question of Hippolytus being bishop of Portus near Rome would also
appear established, for the reasons laid down in Bunsen’s
Letters to Archdeacon Hare, and Canon Wordsworth’s St.
Hippolytus. The mind of inquirers appears to have been
primarily unsettled in consequence of Eusebius’ mentioning
Hippolytus (Ecclesiast. Hist., vi. 10) in company with Beryllus
(of Bostra), an Arabian, expressing at the same time his uncertainty as
to where Hippolytus was bishop. This indecision is easily
explained, and cannot invalidate the tradition and historical testimony
which assign the bishopric of Portus near Rome to Hippolytus, a saint
and martyr of the Church. Of his martyrdom, though the fact
itself is certain, the details, furnished in Prudentius’ hymn,
are not historic. Thus the mode of Hippolytus’ death is
stated by Prudentius to have been identical with that of Hippolytus the
son of Theseus, who was torn limb from limb by being tied to wild
horses. St. Hippolytus, however, is known on historical testimony
to have been thrown into a canal and drowned; but whether the scene of
his martyrdom was Sardinia, to which he was undoubtedly banished along
with the Roman bishop Pontianus, or Rome, or Portus, has not as yet
been definitively proved. The time of his martyrdom, however, is
probably a year or two, perhaps less or more, after the commencement of
the reign of Maximin the Thracian, that is, somewhere about
a.d. 235–39. This enables us to
determine the age of Hippolytus; and as some statements in The
Refutation evince the work to be the composition of an old man, and
as the work itself was written after the death of Callistus in
a.d. 222, this would transfer the period of his
birth to not very long after the last half of the second
century.

The contents of The Refutation, as they
originally stood, seem to have been arranged thus:
The first book (which we
have) contained an account of the different schools of ancient
philosophers; the second (which is missing), the doctrines and
mysteries of the Egyptians; the third (likewise missing), the Chaldean
science and astrology; and the fourth (the beginning of which is
missing), the system of the Chaldean horoscope, and the magical rites
and incantations of the Babylonian Theurgists. Next came the
portion of the work relating more immediately to the heresies of the
Church, which is contained in books v.–ix. The tenth book
is the résumé of the entire, together with the
exposition of the author’s own religious opinions. The
heresies enumerated by Hippolytus comprehend a period starting from an
age prior to the composition of St. John’s Gospel, and
terminating with the death of Callistus. The heresies are
explained according to chronological development, and may be ranged
under five leading schools: (1) The Ophites; (2) Simonists; (3)
Basilidians; (4) Docetæ; (5) Noetians. Hippolytus ascends to
the origin of heresy, not only in assigning heterodoxy a derivative
nature from heathenism, but in pointing out in the Gnosis
elements of abnormal opinions antecedent to the promulgation of
Christianity. We have thus a most interesting account of the
early heresies, which in some respects supplies many desiderata
in the ecclesiastical history of this epoch.

We can scarcely over-estimate the value of The
Refutation, on account of the propinquity of its author to the
apostolic age. Hippolytus was a disciple of St. Irenæus, St.
Irenæus of St. Polycarp, St. Polycarp of St. John. Indeed,
one fact of grave importance connected with the writings of St. John,
is elicited from Hippolytus’ Refutation. The passage
given out of Basilides’ work, containing a quotation by the
heretic from St. John i. 9, settles the period of the composition of
the fourth Gospel, as of greater antiquity by at least thirty years
than is allowed to it by the Tübingen school. It is
therefore obvious that Basilides formed his system out of the prologue
of St. John’s Gospel; thus for ever setting at rest the
allegation of these critics, that St. John’s Gospel was written
at a later date, and assigned an apostolic author, in order to silence
the Basilidian Gnostics.[14]
In the case of Irenæus, too, The Refutation has restored
the Greek text of much of his book Against Heresies, hitherto
only known to us in a Latin version. Nor is the value of
Hippolytus’ work seriously impaired, even on the supposition of
the authorship not being proved,—a concession, however, in no
wise justified by the evidence. Whoever the writer of The
Refutation be, he belonged to the early portion of the third
century, formed his compilations from primitive sources, made
conscientious preparation for his undertaking, delivered statements
confirmed by early writers of note,[15]
and lastly, in the execution of his task, furnished indubitable marks
of information and research, and of having thoroughly mastered the
relations and affinities, each to other, of the various heresies of the
first two and a quarter centuries. These heresies, whether
deducible from attempts to Christianize the philosophy of Paganism, or
to interpret the Doctrines and Life of our Lord by the tenets of
Gnosticism and Oriental speculation generally, or to create a
compromise with the pretensions of Judaism,—these heresies, amid
all their complexity and diversity, St. Hippolytus[16] reduces to one common ground of
censure—antagonism to Holy Scripture. Heresy, thus branded,
he leaves to wither under the condemnatory sentence of the
Church.

↑
A very good
representation of it may be seen in Bunsen’s Hippolytus and
his Age, as a frontispiece to vol. i. London,
1852.

↑
The
learned Dr. Wordsworth deals with all the difficulties of the case with
judicial impartiality, but enforces his conclusions with irrefragable
cogency. See also Dr. Jarvis, learned Introduction, p.
339.

↑
The
valuable treatise of Dr. Bunsen must be compared with the luminous
reviewal of Wordsworth, St. Hippolytus and the Church of Rome,
London, 1853; enlarged 1880.

↑
It settles
the period of the composition of St. John’s Gospel only, of
course, on the supposition that Hippolytus is giving a correct account
as regards Basilides’ work. The mode, however, in which
Hippolytus introduces the quotation, appears to place its authenticity
beyond reasonable doubt. He represents Basilides (see book vii.
chap. 10) as notifying his reference to St. John’s Gospel thus,
“And this,” he says, “is what has been stated in the
Gospels: ‘He was the true light, which lighteneth every man
that cometh into the world.’” Now this is precisely
the mode of reference we should expect that Basilides would employ;
whereas, if Hippolytus had either fabricated the passage or adduced it
from hearsay, it is almost certain he would have said “in the
Gospel of St. John,” and not indefinitely “the
Gospels.” And more than this, the formulary “in the
Gospels,” adopted by Basilides, reads very like a recognition of
an agreed collection of authorized accounts of our Lord’s life
and sayings. It is also remarkable that the word
“stated” (λεγόμενον)
Basilides has just used in quoting (Gen. i. 3) as interchangeable with
“written” (γέγραπται),
the word exclusively applied to what is included within the canon of
Scripture.

↑
The
translator desires to acknowledge obligations to Dr. Lottner, Professor
of Sanskrit and sub-librarian in Trinity College, Dublin,—a
gentleman of extensive historical erudition as well as of accurate and
comprehensive scholarship.